Only a Matter of Time
by ParchmentandQuill8
Summary: When a relaxing day out for the team goes awry, they end up with a little girl aboard the Waverider. A quick look into time shows that she bears a close relationship with a few team members in a way that nobody would have expected. Much pre-Captain Canary. Rated T because of the teensiest bit of salty language. *We'll Get There in No Time part 2*
**Author's Note: This is the first LOT fanfic I've written. It's a oneshot and I started it thinking it would only be a thousand words give or take, but I got a little carried away and wrote almost 5000 words. There's lots of pre-Captain Canary because they've become my favorite thing recently. I hope you guys enjoy.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Legends of Tomorrow**

* * *

They'd been in Central City 2111. The Waverider was in need of repairs and the team was in need of a break. Rip chose Central City because it was familiar and 2111 because it was far enough in the future where they wouldn't run into any familiar faces and early enough that Savage wouldn't have done any damage yet. However, Central City had grown a little bit, and due to the new skyscrapers, there was no longer any room to accommodate the size of the Waverider. Rip had landed the ship in the first field he could find — which ended up being about a mile and a half out of the city — and set the team loose. Before letting them go, he'd pointed them towards an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city, telling them to meet him there in a few hours.

"And don't do anything to mess up the timeline more than I'm certain you already have!" he called as they left.

In Central City, they mostly all went in separate ways.

Kendra went to straight to Jitters, happy to see that almost it was almost a hundred years later and they were still selling The Flash. Ray tagged along and then dragged her to an old science museum he'd gone to when he was a kid, which now had an entire hallway for metahumans and a display especially for The Flash.

Stein and Jax went to go check out Star Labs, which was now half the old advanced technology research facility it used to be and half non-profit organization to help kids get into science due to the efforts of Caitlin Snow and Felicity Smoak in the late 2020s.

Sara, Leonard, and Mick took a less sentimental approach and headed towards the nearest bar with the full intention of getting absolutely plastered. Both Sara and Leonard were ultimately unsuccessful and were handed the task of dragging a barely conscious Mick to the meeting place.

"If he pukes I'm not cleaning it up." Sara said breathlessly as she shoved Mick through the doorway into the abandoned warehouse.

"You're late." Rip said, cutting Leonard off before he'd begun his retort. He and the rest of the team were standing a few feet away from them. "We need to leave before any damage is done to the timeline."

The team turned back towards the door just as they heard a loud shuffling sound coming from the back of the warehouse, followed by several clattering crashes and then a high-pitched scream.

Sara and Leonard let go of Mick and let him fall to the floor as they ran towards the source of the noise, followed closely by the rest of the team. She turned a corner and saw not one of the typical adversaries they faced on a daily basis, but a little girl, no older than eight years old. Her face was swollen and bruised and blood dripped from several deep-looking cuts. Sara saw a tall figure wearing all black disappear behind a corner and she took off after it. Leonard and Rip followed behind her and Kendra ran towards the little girl.

Sara caught sight of the figure after she rounded the corner and recognized the same ensemble that the woman who'd gone after their past selves had worn.

"Looks like the Time Masters found a new Pilgrim." Rip commented, noticing the same thing Sara had.

Before any of them could get any hits in, the Pilgrim disappeared into thin air.

"Well that's new." Rip said.

"Did she just apparate like in Harry Potter?" Sara asked, slowing to a stop along with Rip and Leonard.

"It appears so." Rip replied, shoving his gun back into its holster. They turned and hurried back towards the rest of the team where they saw Kendra hoisting the little girl — who now was seemingly unconscious — over her shoulder.

"What happened?" Sara asked.

"I hope you don't mind, Rip," Kendra began, adjusting the girl on her hip, "I tranqed her when I tried to move her and she started to fight me with hand-to-hand combat of all things. Who is she?"

"Are you suggesting that you want to take her back onto the Waverider?"

"Are you suggesting that you want to leave her here?" Jax replied.

Rip grimaced for a moment, clearly fighting some kind of internal battle before he finally sighed.

"Fine." He turned and walked away from them, having reached his "irrational-team-related-shit limit" as Sara called it.

* * *

Kendra brought the little girl to the med-bay and the rest of the team followed along, intrigued about who she was and why she had attracted the attention of the new Pilgrim.

"Gideon, would you please administer a mild sedative to our little guest?" Rip commanded of the AI.

"Why?" Ray asked, as Gideon followed Rip's order. "She's already out."

"I don't want to risk her seeking something she shouldn't, especially not if she's important to the timeline, not until we figure out who she is. Gideon, run DNA tests. Try to trace her back to a specific point in time. The rest of you, make yourselves useful. Don't forget our mission. We still have to find Savage."

The team followed Rip out of the med-bay.

* * *

Less than fifteen minutes later, Gideon had finished her search. The team had spread themselves across the main deck, pouring over maps and demographics in an attempt to figure out where Savage was.

"The results of the test you asked for have been reached, Captain." the AI chirped.

"Fantastic, Gideon." Rip replied. "And?"

"The tests suggests that the DNA matches Victoria Snart, born in Central City, 2020."

Upon hearing his name, Leonard's face fell, remembering as it did that the little girl in the med-bay had been found bruised, bloody, and very alone. He'd always assumed he'd never have children, simply out of fear of becoming what his own father had been. Now, hearing what he could only assume to be his suspicions confirmed, he was surprised to feel a bit disappointed. He'd hoped he had been wrong.

"Back up Gideon." Sara commanded, and it was her voice that snapped Leonard back to reality. "What was that name?"

Leonard chose to ignore the hint of a mocking tone in her voice.

"Victoria Snart, daughter of Leonard Snart and Sara Lance."

Then, it was Sara's turn to fall silent. Her lips parted, forming a small, surprised O. She glanced at Leonard. The others looked from Leonard and Sara to each other incredulously. The only one who didn't look so surprised was Mick, who merely grunted appreciatively, as if he'd seen it coming the whole time.

"Captain." Gideon's voice rang out, interrupting the silence, "the sedative is wearing off of Miss Snart-" Leonard flinched slightly at the sound of his name "-would you like me to administer a second dosage."

"No, Gideon, that's quite alright." Rip turned to address the team. "Someone should go talk to her — no, not you Mr. Snart, or you Miss Lance. She'd recognize both of you and start asking questions, questions we don't know how to answer. No, it'd better be Kendra - and take Ray with you. There's something about his charm that just might appeal to an eight year old."

"Alright." Kendra stood and led Ray out of the room.

"As you were." Rip addressed the rest of the team.

They all turned back to their work, everyone except Leonard. Even Sara had hurriedly pulled a map towards her and was staring pointedly at it. He tried to ignore the not-so-subtle glances that were shooting his way, but he couldn't, and he couldn't ignore how the one person who seemed to matter right now was glaring at the paper in her hands and nowhere else.

He could feel the panic rising inside of him. He had to get away from the stares, so he stood up and walked quickly out of the room. He stalked down the hallway, following Ray and Kendra's voices until he reached the med-bay, where he stopped just behind the door. He tucked himself behind a corner, making sure that the little girl couldn't see him. He did this not out of fear of damaging Rip's precious timeline, which he didn't really care about, but because he was aware of how devastating it would be for his daughter to recognize him and him to not recognize her.

No, he would stay in his corner, behind a metal pillar, and he would listen; try to piece together the life his daughter had.

Kendra was speaking now, attempting to subtly coerce some useful information out of the girl.

"Your name is Victoria Snart?" she was asking.

"Yes." Then there was a short silence before she spoke again. "Where am I? When can I leave?"

"You can leave when we find out more about you." Ray answered.

"Are you studying me? Because if you are, don't bother. There's nothing wrong with me except you. Now, take me home!"

Leonard couldn't help but smirk. This is definitely Sara's kid.

"No, we're not studying you." Kendra cut in, "But when we found you, you were hurt and all alone and our job is to help people like that, so we did."

"Well help me get home then."

"We want to, that's why we need you to answer our questions."

"Then you'll take me home?" she asked doubtfully.

Leonard was relieved at her insistence on being taken home, because it meant that it wasn't that bad. When he was her age, he would have killed to be away from his father, and the irony of that statement was not lost on him. If she wanted to go back, he couldn't be doing anything bad to her.

"Now Victoria," Kendra began again.

"-Rory." she interrupted.

"What?" Kendra asked.

"People call me Rory."

"Do they now?" Leonard could hear Ray's voice dripping with both sarcasm and glee, but even he couldn't contain a smile either. His kid's name was Rory. Apparently his partner wouldn't stay angry at him for too much longer.

"Okay Rory." Kendra began again, "What was happening to you when we found you?"

"Someone tried to kidnap me." she answered like it was obvious.

"But we found you in the year 2111."

"Like the future?" she asked, her eyes widening in not fear, but excitement.

"Yes. How did you get there?"

"I guess it was the person who took me." Rory replied, recovering quickly. She looked around the med-bay. "So this is what the future looks like. I'm not impressed."

Leonard smiled at her answer. She was sounding more like himself as he listened.

"Do you know who she was?"

"No. Probably someone who doesn't like me or maybe my parents."

"Why wouldn't someone like your parents." Kendra could think of a lot of people, but she figured that pointing out that she knew Rory's parents wouldn't be the best move in preserving her identity or theirs.

"I dunno, maybe 'cause of their jobs. I think they might be cops or the FBI or something."

"You don't know for sure what they do?"

"No. They told me that they'd tell me when I'm older, but not now."

Leonard assumed from that answer that he and Sara were doing something similar in the future to what they were doing now. Whatever it was, it had attracted the attention of the Pilgrim and it had endangered their daughter.

At that, he turned on his heels and walked away from the med-bay, feeling slightly better than he had before, but not by much.

* * *

A few minutes after Leonard returned to the main deck, Rip left to aid Ray and Kendra with the interrogation of Rory Snart.

Leonard moved to sit next to Sara. He leaned a bit closer to her to say what he wanted to say.

"Her name's Rory."

"What?" she asked, looking up from her map in confusion.

"People call her Rory."

"You mean like -" Sara tipped her head towards Mick who was sitting in his chair nursing some kind of alcohol.

"Yep." he replied.

Sara couldn't help but chuckle. "That's kind of awesome."

Neither said anything after that.

Rip, Ray, and Kendra all returned about an hour later, looking slightly more drained than they should have after a conversation with an eight year old.

"From what I could piece together from your daughter's story," Rip began, rubbing his temple, "it turns out you do something that angers the Time Masters in the future - no surprise there - and they call in the Pilgrim. You know the rest. I guess she got some pretty decent shots in before we showed up. You taught her well."

The corners of Sara's mouth curled upwards slightly. Leonard could tell she was proud of herself.

"She's asleep in the empty quarters." Rip gestured mindlessly towards the door. "You can see her if you want."

Sara nodded and stood from the floor. Leonard pushed himself off of the wall he leaned against and followed Sara out of the room. He lengthened his strides until he was walking alongside her. They went along the hallways at a much slower pace then they normally would have, but Leonard was grateful nonetheless.

"So are we gonna talk about it?" Sara finally asked, looking pointedly in front of her.

"Talk about what?"

"I dunno, maybe how we're about to see our future daughter, and how in the future we, you know, have a daughter."

"What's there to talk about?" he retorted.

"You never cease to amaze me."

"Right back at you, assassin."

"Don't you think we're on a first name basis now? We do have a kid after all."

"Whatever you want."

At that point, they'd reached their daughter's room. Sara stopped just before the doorway.

"What's the hold up, Sara?" Leonard asked, realizing as he did so that he'd never spoken her first name before. "Scared?"

"Never." Sara pushed past him and entered the room, Leonard slowly following her.

Rory Snart was asleep in a bed pushed against a wall and between two pillars. The white blanket was pulled up past her shoulders and one arm rested on top of the bed, her fist gripping a fold in the was propped up on two pillows and her head fell to the left, her mouth drooping slightly open.

He was taken aback by how small she was. She was stretched out underneath the blankets, yet she didn't seem to be even half as long as the bed. He didn't think Lisa was this small at this age. She was like him, long and lanky, and always had been. Rory had clearly inherited her mother's size and stature.

The thing about her that struck him the most, though, was how innocent she looked. Innocence had never been a part of his life. He'd never been a child, not really, and Lisa was the same.

When he was little, maybe two or three years older than Rory was now, he'd gone to a carnival with his school. He'd won a couple fish — bettas, the kind that you can buy for about five bucks and come in every color under the sun (his had been green and light purple) — and he'd been so excited to take them home and show Lisa (although thinking back on it, she probably was only a few months old, completely incapable of comprehending what she was looking at, but he'd shown her all the same). He'd dumped them into a big plastic tupperware container because that was the closest thing he had to a fish bowl and then he'd left for a few hours. When he went back, there only a green fish in the container. He'd quickly come to the conclusion that the purple betta had been eaten by the green one and, feeling sick to his stomach for more reasons than one, he flushed the green betta fish down the toilet. Any innocence he had left disappeared entirely after that.

Yet sleeping before him was his daughter, looking more innocent and dare he say angelic, with a halo of golden blonde hair surrounding her face, than he'd ever seen from anyone before. He wondered where she got it. It wasn't inherited from him or from Sara: the ex-assassin recovering from a bad case of bloodlust. Perhaps it was simply that she has a good life and has no need to be anything but a child.

Suddenly, Leonard realized how quiet it was.

"She has your eyes." he said, breaking the silence.

"Her eyes are closed." Sara pointed out, quirking one of her eyebrows.

"I know." he replied, smirking at her. Sara rolled her eyes and smiled appreciatively at his sorry attempt at a joke.

Leonard took a step closer to Rory. He reached out an arm and rubbed his index finger across her cheek. Her skin was soft like velvet, like Lisa's when she was little. Gideon had done a good job at healing all of her cuts and bruises.

"Do you think we do a good job?"

"What?" Sara asked, distracted. She'd been staring down at Rory with an expression on her face that was almost loving. Not exactly, but close.

"Do you think we're good parents."

"Yeah." Sara replied. They both knew that neither of them needed any more affirmation than that.

* * *

They left Rory's room soon after that, bade by Kendra to go to the mess hall to eat lunch. They sat next to each other, listening in silence to the babble of the rest of the team. They all ate quickly and returned to their previous tasks,until the only people left in the mess hall were Leonard and Sara. Sara jabbed at the food on her plate with a fork and Leonard sat stiffly, staring into space, not touching his lunch at all.

"Ah, Mr Snart, Miss Lance," Rip strode into the room and over to Leonard and Sara, "just the people I wanted to see. After careful deliberation, I've decided that if you would like, I'll allow you to meet your daughter. I'll be giving her an amnesia pill before she leaves, so she won't remember any of this. If you want to meet her, you can, but may I suggest that it be both of you. I can imagine how it would feel for one of you to have met her and not the other."

Neither Sara nor Leonard said anything for a moment. Rip Hunter was rarely this permissive and they weren't sure how to react. It was Leonard who spoke first.

"Why are you doing this, Rip?" he asked, drawing out Rip's name. "I thought you said it could damage the timeline; hurt the future."

"That's why I'm letting you do this. I often feel that the two of you tend to lose sight of what we're doing. You forget what's at stake. Perhaps, if you see what you could lose, you'll be more careful about not putting the future at risk, because if you don't, you might not have one."

Sara and Leonard exchanged a glance, both trying to find any emotion behind the other's eyes.

"I'll let you decide what you want to do." Rip finished. He turned on his heels and walked away.

"So," Sara finally said after a long silence, "I didn't expect that to happen."

"Nope." Leonard replied. "So what do you think?"

"I think I want to meet her," Sara began slowly, "but if you don't want to, it's okay."

"No, I think I want to meet her too."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Now?" Sara asked.

"Better late than never. She'll be going home soon."

Sara nodded and they both started towards their daughter's room.

"If you don't mind my saying," Sara began, "you didn't look so pleased to find out you have a kid in the future. Actually, you kind of looked like you were gonna hurl."

"I've told you about my dad." Leonard replied. Sara nodded as he continued. "I always told myself I wouldn't have a kid in case I turned out like him. I've been wondering this whole time what makes me change my mind and then I realized that it's you."

"Me?" Sara asked.

"I probably knew you'd kick my ass if I laid a hand on her."

Sara laughed. "And that makes you change your mind."

"Yeah."

They moved at a quicker pace than they had the first time they'd gone to see her and reached the door in no time.

It was Leonard that stopped that time.

"What?" Sara asked, turning to face him. "Cold feet?"

She snickered slightly at her own joke and Leonard suppressed the smirk that the bad pun would normally have elicited.

"No, I just think we haven't make a plan. What are we going to do in there, pretend to be her parents?"

"Technically, we are her parents."

"You know what I mean."

"I think we're going to go in there and pretend to know what we're doing. That seems to usually work for us."

"Not much of a plan, but I can live with it." Leonard replied.

Sara opened the door and she and Leonard stepped inside. Rory didn't look up from her book — Kendra had noticed about twenty minutes after Rory woke up that she'd seemed restless, and knowing what both Sara and Leonard were like when they were restless was enough to call her to action — for a moment, but when she did her whole face brightened. She leapt off of the bed and bounded over to her parents. She jumped into Leonard's arms and he had no choice but to pick her up, awkwardly attempting to figure out how to hold her and ultimately deciding to balance her somewhat precariously on his hip. Sara raised her eyebrows at the sight.

"You found me!" Rory exclaimed, wrapping her arms around Leonard's neck and her legs around his waist. "I knew you would!"

Rory then reached towards Sara. Leonard, relieved, passed Rory over to her, leaving him to marvel at how different she acted around the people she thought were her parents. With Ray and Kendra, she'd been curt and guarded, but with her parents, Leonard realized, she was completely at ease.

Sara looked up at him from around Rory's head, her expression showing uneasiness and something that looked like fear.

Rory pulled away from Sara to look at her, and then up at Leonard. Her eyebrows furrowed and her face assumed a look of confusion.

"You look different."

"Different how?" Sara asked.

"Your hair's longer." Rory's hands traveled to Sara's hair, twisting it in her fingers. "Was I gone for a long time?"

"No." Sara replied, finding herself automatically smiling. "Not long at all."

"Oh." Rory paused for a moment, searching both her mother and father's faces. "You still look different. You look sad. You too, daddy. Was I making you sad 'cause I was gone?"

"Of course we were sad because you were gone." Sara replied, apparently deciding for Leonard that they would be pretending to be her parents rather than whatever else she'd had in mind. She moved over to sit on the edge of the bed, adjusting Rory so she sat across her lap. Leonard followed and sat down next to them, content to simply watch them interact with each other.

He hadn't really seen Rory yet, not awake anyway. He was struck by how much she looked like Sara. Their eyes were the same shape, although the color was definitely his shade of icy blue rather than Sara's deep turquoise. Their hair was the same shade of golden blonde, although the texture of Rory's was similar to Lisa's sleek, shiny waves that had been described to Leonard as "beachy" before, whatever that meant. The shape of her face was neither like his nor Sara's, but a diamond that reminded him of pictures he'd seen of Sara's sister Laurel.

"Can we go home now?" Rory asked. It was quiet, almost a whisper, but it brought Leonard out of his train of thought.

"Yes," Sara said, "but before that, we need you to take this."

Sara extracted from her pocket a small red pill that Leonard instantly recognized as the amnesia pill that he'd given Lisa after she'd been recovered from her encounter with the Pilgrim.

"What'll it do?" Rory asked, taking the pill from Sara and rolling it between her thumb and index finger.

"Make you sleepy for the ride home." she answered. She wasn't exactly lying. The pill would knock her out for a good hour or so, long enough for them to get her safely back to 2028.

"Okay." Rory replied. Sara shifted her over into Leonard's lap while she stood to make her a glass of water. Leonard instinctively curled his arms around her as Rory looked up at him with her big blue eyes.

"I missed you, daddy." she said. "The people here are crazy."

"Believe me, I know they are."

Rory didn't say anything after that. She leaned into Leonard's chest, nuzzling her face against his sweater. He felt her close her eyes, so he rested his cheek lightly on the top of her head.

Sara reentered the room, carrying with her a glass filled halfway with water. She stopped when she saw Leonard and Rory. She smiled at him, not a snarky or sarcastic smile which was the kind he normally got, but a real smile, one he'd only seen from her a handful of times and only personally elicited once or twice.

"Here you go." she said, sitting back on the end of the bed and holding out the water. Rory opened her eyes and sat up. She put the pill that was staining her fingers red in her mouth. Sara and Leonard watched as she took the cup and gulped down the pill. She followed that with another sip of water before she handed the glass back to Sara. Almost instantly, Rory's eyes began to droop closed.

"I love you." The words fell out of her mouth as she fell asleep.

"I love you too." Sara and Leonard spoke simultaneously, both murmuring the words rather than saying them out loud. They both sat and looked at their daughter.

"She's kind of perfect." Sara finally said, smiling at Leonard. He was happy to see that it was a normal Sara smile, instead of the one full of fondness and other emotions he couldn't yet comprehend.

"You won't be saying that when she's sixteen and hates us." Leonard replied, pushing away a stray piece of Rory's hair that had fallen in front of her face.

"Look at that face. That face is not capable of hatred." Sara argued. She raised her eyebrows at her own words. "How is she our kid?"

"I dunno." Leonard replied. "But I do know that we only have an hour until she wakes up. We have to get her home."

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, Rip was driving down a suburban street in a town outside of Central City. Leonard was in the passenger seat and Sara and Rory were in the back. Rory was still asleep with her head on Sara's shoulder. Sara's fingers wereabsentmindedly combing through Rory's hair, and Leonard thought she might not be aware she was doing it. Rip parked the car a few doors down from the house that was apparently theres.

"Stay here. Don't get out of this car." he commanded, and for what may have been the first time, both Sara and Leonard obeyed him. Rip got out of the car and opened the back door. Sara unbuckled the straps on the carseat and kissed Rory's forehead before Rip removed her from the car.

Both Sara and Leonard watched Rip carry Rory down the sidewalk and up a stone walkway towards one of the houses. It was big, a few stories tall, and light blue with a green lawn and a wrap-around porch. The windows had shutters that were clearly there for decoration purposes only, and large bay windows looked into the kitchen and living room. There were a couple cars and the remains of some chalk drawings on the driveway. They may as well have just added a white picket fence and called it a day.

Rip finally reached the front door. He rang the doorbell and waited for a moment until someone answered the door. It was himself, and he was surprised to see that he didn't look much different, a few years older maybe, but otherwise the same. He took Rory's sleeping form from Rip and shook his hand. Then, Sara appeared next to him. She looked pretty much the same too except, as Rory had pointed out, her hair was shorter, barely falling past her shoulders. He thought it looked good, but Sara - his Sara, the one that was sitting behind him in the car - judging by her affronted scoff, seemed to take personal offense to it.

They watched Sara hug Rip — a hug that Sara now would have been uncomfortable with both because of the person and the length — before stepping back next to Leonard. He shifted Rory slightly before letting one hand casually drop to rest around Sara's waist, pulling her a bit closer to him.

Leonard suddenly realized what Rory had meant earlier when she said that he and Sara both looked sad. The couple standing across from Rip looked so astonishingly, mind-blowingly happy that Leonard didn't know how to react. He knew that Sara had seen it too when he heard a sharp intake of breath from the backseat.

They watched until Rip turned and started back down the porch steps, waving one last time at the family as they disappeared back into the house.

"So that's us." Sara finally said.

"Looks like it." Leonard replied.

"We don't do too bad."

"No." he replied. "Not bad at all."


End file.
